How to Get Rid of Stickers in Yard

If you are a gardener with a small lawn outside your house, you must have plants in it. You might see recently some stickers on your lawn that must be annoying you and invading your lawn day by day. So, everybody needs to learn how to get rid of these stickers and ensure the healthy growth of lawn plants.

There are different types of stickers, and all are equally frustrating. They reach your lawn and house once they stick t your pets or clothes. So, in this article, I’ll describe the types of these invading stickers and how you can get rid of them. Following the article will give you a beautiful lawn and a chance to enjoy beautiful outdoor space. From manual treatments to chemical treatments, I’ll cover all of them. Let’s get started:

Types of Sticker Weeds in the Yard

Identifying sticker plants is important to understand how to eliminate them. You often hear a lot of names of stickers, but there are some common ones that we see mostly. Here are the names of those common stickers:

• Sticker weeds
• Lawn burrs
• Grass stickers
• Burweed
• Pricking monsters
• Grass burrs
• Sandburs
• Tribulus Terrestris

All of these stickers are equally annoying; you cannot go into your yard or lawn barefoot if these stickers are there. They are also very big for your pets, so getting rid of them is necessary.

Tribulus Terrestris

This species of sticker is one of the most harmful species of stickers. It can cause severe problems for the garden owner and pets. It is not found in Antarctica; except on this continent, you can find Tribulus Terrestris in all other continents. They can cause a problem if you find them in your yard. It has sharp and long spines, which can penetrate the skin.

Sandburs

Sandburs also has another name, called buffelgrass. This species belongs to the Cenchrus genus. This sticker plant was only found in America at the start, but it has spread to Europe and Australia with time. They are known as toxic plant species in those countries because of their appearance and harmful effects on the yard. If you see them in your yard, you have to take immediate action to eliminate them.

You can easily recognize the sandburs in your yard because of their spine-covered spurs or hooks, which got stuck in clothes. If animals eat them, the spurs can hurt them, but they are not poisonous. They grow almost 0.4 inches long, so you can easily recognize them between the grass. Never walk barefoot on your lawn if you know sandburs are in the grass. They can be painful when trodden or matted into the skin of humans or animals.

Burweed

The Burweed sticker species is known for its needle-like appearance that sticks to the animals or humans that pass by. It usually uses the animals for spreading, so if you have any pet at home, do not let it go near this sticker weed. If this sticker weed is in your yard, it would be painful for animals and humans to walk over them. 

Ensure to avoid treading on them when you notice them in your yard. At first, this sticker weed was found in South America; later, it spread to North America, New Zealand, Australia, and parts of Europe.

The Fastest Way to Get Rid of Stickers in the Yard

Here are some fastest ways that help you get rid of stickers from your lawn. Let’s dive into their details:

1. Remove Stickers With a Hand

The plants are still young in the fall or winter, so removing the stickers in these seasons is better. If the sticker weed is tender, it must not have spread or taken its roots strongly in the soil; removing it will be easier. Whether you are removing the new or old stickers from your yard, make sure not to leave a trace of the plant. The parts that you have to remove are stems, leaves, roots, and seed heads.

Dig up the soil 6 inches deeper around the sticker weed to loosen the soil base and roots. You can use a weed puller or a handheld fork to remove the entire sticker weed from the soil and not leave any trace of roots in the soil. If you remove the established stickers from the soil, you must pay extra care then. Firstly, if you handle the burs without protective gardening gloves, they will be sharp and harm your hands.

Secondly, you will easily scatter the seeds with handling or vigorous shaking. Follow the entire process carefully to ensure no roots or remaining plants are left in the soil. After removing the stickers from the soil, throw them away from your house. The plant will be gone, and there will be no chance of them returning.

2. Use a Mulch to Prevent Sticker Weeds

Most professionals and experts use mulch solutions to remove sticker weeds from their lawns. It is a cultural solution for all of the gardeners out there. You can easily eliminate harmful sticker weeds without using chemicals in your yard. Adding mulch on the top of the ground limits the amount of water and sunlight stickers are getting. They will not be able to get sunlight anymore so they will die soon.

Remember that organic mulch is essential to replace more often than synthetic mulch. The best method to apply the mulch on the ground is to mix it with pre-emergent herbicide first and then add the mulch on the top to prevent the sticker weeds’ growth. Synthetic mulch is usually more expensive than organic one. But it is expensive because it lasts in your yard for more than 4 years.

You will usually find synthetic mulch in the form of geotextiles, a fabric that does not harm the plants negatively. This mulch lets the air and water pass through it but stops the sunlight from coming to the weeds, which results in the dead sticker weeds. Sometimes, you might notice some sticker weeds are so well rooted and do not die with mulch; the problem will be solved using the newspaper. 

All you need to do is lay down the newspaper on the ground and add mulch over it. It will stop the oxygen and sunlight coming to the sticker weeds, and they will die after some time.

 3. Keep Your Lawn Hydrated

Most weeds or sticker weeds occur in yards because of poor watering systems. Some weeds occur due to the overwatering in a lawn. You should less or lightly water your lawn because sticker weeds like excess watering. So avoid overwatering the lawn and avoid excess irrigation system. If you planted your lawn recently, that must require much water daily.

It will be best to water the lawn infrequently and deeply; in this way, the sticker weeds will not have much water to grow. So, whenever you see sticker weeds growing in your lawn, reduce your watering schedule in the yard. It will help in avoiding dehydration. Of course, you will not want to let your garden or lawn die due to the lack of water.

If your lawn has dead grass or dried-up patches, the weeds will have more space to spread in the lawn. As a result, the sticker weeds will become aggressive because they have established stronger roots inside the soil. They will absorb all the water you provide to other plants, encouraging their growth in your yard, and you will see more and more weeds with time. So, make sure not to overwater your lawn; irrigate it less.

4. Mow Your Lawn With a Bag Attachment

If you are observing some stickers in your yard, one of the easiest ways to get rid of them is to attach the mower bag with the lawn mower before mowing the grass stickers. Mow the whole lawn to ensure you have not left any area and get rid of all the stickers. It is the simplest way to eliminate the annoying sticker weeds from the yard.

After removing the stickers clippings with a lawnmower, throw them far away from your house to not let the stickers grow again. If you have any pet at home, never let it or take it in that area where you throw the sticker clippings. They stick to the animal’s bodies easily and make their way to your home again.

5. Solarization

Solarization is when you remove the whole lawn grass to remove the stickers and then prepare the lawn again to grow fresh and new grass. If you are okay with removing your lawn grass completely, then all you need to do is cover your lawn with a large, heavy, opaque black plastic or spare tarp and leave it. The next process will take by nature.

You can also use newspaper for this purpose; you can lay down the newspaper all over the sticker weeds and not allow sunlight to reach the stickers. As a result, they die soon. Never use the landscaping fabric because it has smaller holes all over it. These holes provide enough sunlight and moisture to the sticker weeds, enabling them to grow and spread all over the lawn.

6. Burn Small Patches of Stickers

Another simple way to eliminate the stickers from the lawn is to kill the sticker burrs and not allow their regrowth by burning them. For this purpose, you can use a propane hand torch; it will help burn the sticker weeds’ patches. Before starting the process, wet the Burweed stickers’ grass to protect them.

Put on your safety glasses and gloves to not harm your hands and eyes with fire. It would be better to have a hove close by to let the flame spread when you finish watering. Also, you can use boiling water to kill the strikers instead of a hand torch. Choose any method that you think has less danger and more results.

7. Home Remedies to Eliminate Stickers

You must have some ready ingredients at home to help eliminate yard stickers. Here are some popular and most effective remedies:

a) Vinegar

Using vinegar is the natural process of removing stickers from your lawn. Vinegar helps kill the stickers but also affects the nearby plants, including grass. So, be careful while applying the vinegar to the sticker plants. The best way to apply the vinegar to the lawn is to put it in a big spray bottle or garden sprayer. Then spray the vinegar on the sticker in repeated rounds.

Do this procedure, especially on sunny days, and continue doing this for the next few days until you see the sandburs die. Collect all the dead stickers by hand and put them into a bag. Throw them far away from your house. When you have removed all of the stickers from your yard, return to your grass maintenance schedule, but keep monitoring the sticker burrs in the yard.

b) Baking Soda

Baking soda is one of the most effective ways of killing the stickers weeds from the yard. Baking soda pulls out the water from the stickers and makes them dry. Make sure to apply baking soda before the stickers develop seeds and burrs. Apply the baking soda with your hand on the stickers and around their stems on the ground. It will start pulling out the water from the sticker weeds.

After applying the baking soda to the stickers, water your lawn immediately to let the sticker roots absorb the baking soda while absorbing water. Applying the baking soda to the sticker weed can harm nearby plants, so apply it carefully to only the sand burrs. We mostly have this ingredient at home; you do not have to spend money on chemicals. Use it and kill all the stickers from your yard.

8. Use Herbicides to Kill the Stickers

Using the chemicals in the lawn to kill the stickers might not attract many people because it can affect the environment. However, herbicides can kill the harmful stickers and weeds from the lawn. You can apply the herbicides before and after the appearance of stickers. Here are some common chemical treatments:

a) Post-Emergent Treatment

If you notice the stickers have established strong roots inside the ground, then using the post-emergent herbicide is best to kill their developing burrs. If you want instant and best results, choose a herbicide with atrazine or metsulfuron. Applying the herbicide in winter will be the best choice, so immediately apply the post-emergent herbicide following the last frost and water.

If you skip the winter time, you can apply the herbicide in the spring. It will eliminate the stickers; the sharp burrs have already emerged, so you must kill them. Remember not to apply the herbicide when the temperature is above 32 degrees C (90 degrees F); it will destroy your turf grass.

b) Pre-Emergent Treatment

Pre-emergent herbicides protect the yards from getting the stickers to come again next season. If you don’t know which pre-emergent herbicide will be best, buy the Isoxaben pre-emergent herbicide. It is highly effective and gives instant results. You have to put the herbicide in the garden sprayer and spray on the stickers in the fall before letting the stickers germinate in winter or spring.

After spraying the herbicide on the sticker weeds, water them immediately to let the stickers absorb the herbicide in the roots. When the herbicide is absorbed in roots, it kills the stickers. Pull the dead stickers out with a hand from the soil and ensure no part of the roots is inside the soil. Throw the stickers far away or burn them to prevent them from returning.

9. Apply Nitrogen-Rich Fertilizer

Nitrogen makes the lawn grass lush, green, and healthy. Every lawn grass needs rich nitrogen to grow effectively and thickly. If you have any nitrogen-rich fertilizer at home, apply it to your yard plants to make them strong enough to fight against the stickers and weeds. Fertilized yards will grow thickly and will not leave any space in between for the stickers or weeds to pop up. So, whenever you seed new grass in your lawn, apply nitrogen-rich fertilizer to avoid the stickers coming near your yard.

When to Remove Stickers in the Yard

If you remove the sticker weeds from your lawn by hand, you can do it anytime. But applying, home remedies and herbicides have a specific time to apply. If you apply them in the required time, they will give you the best results, but if you apply them at an inappropriate time, you will suffer some harmful effects in your yard. Applying the post-emergent herbicides is best in December, January, and February.

It works best at that time against the young sticker plants which have not established their roots yet. However, If you do not get rid of them, they will become mature in spring and be difficult to get rid of. If, for any reason, you could not apply the herbicide in winter, and now there is springtime, then you can apply post-emergent herbicide in this season too. Because it can kill the mature stickers, also. 

Never use the pre-emergent herbicide when the sticker weeds have become matured plants or sprouted. Pre-emergent herbicide only kills the stickers when they are germinating. If you have pre-emergent herbicide, applying it at the end of the summer or early fall when the sticker seeds are germinating will be best. It will protect your yard from the weeds and stickers that will sprout.

Conclusion

Many gardeners face problems like stickers and weeds in their yard or lawn; if you are also a gardener, you must face a similar situation. It is somehow annoying to see stickers on a lawn because they kill the lawn plants and destroy their appearance. I hope reading the article has provided you with complete knowledge about how you can get rid of all those stickers germinating and growing in your yard. Follow the steps and instructions in the article to get the best results and enjoy the beautiful lawn space outside your house!

FAQs

1. What Is the Best Way to Get Rid of the Stickers?

Wet the clean rag or paper towel with alcohol and rub it on the residue to lift it off. To kill the stickers, lay the paper towel or rag on the area and leave it for several minutes. It will soften the residue, and you must rub off what’s left behind.

2. When Should I Spray the Yard for Stickers?

According to the scientist at MSU, the best way to kill the sticker weeds from your yard is to apply the pre-emergent herbicide on stickers. Before letting the seeds sprout, the best time to apply the pre-emergent herbicide is before October. So, if you notice stickers in your yard that are in their initial state, apply a pre-emergent herbicide; it will kill all the germinating stickers.

3. Which Is the Strongest Herbicide to Kill Stickers in the Yard?

The best and strongest herbicides are Weed Free Zone, Weed B Gon, and Atrazine. They are the fastest way to get rid of stickers in yard by effectively killing them.